Mansusan Natural Recreation Forest

Sometime in November, my family went on a trip outside Seoul. When you live in a big, busy city and when your life evolves around work the whole week, you just want to escape and be one with nature.

I love visiting historical places in Korea and Gyeongju is one of my favorite places. I’ve been there twice despite the long distance from Seoul. I wanted to go there again but two days is such a short time considering that we’ll have to be in the car for at least 10 hours on the roundtrip drive from Seoul to Gyeongju. We decided to visit Buyeo instead.

Buyeo is identified with the Baekje Dynasty, founded by Onjo – the third son of Jumong. It is about a two hour drive from Seoul – but it took us four hours because of the traffic on Expressway 1!

Before we went to Buyeo, we made reservations on a small cottage at “Mansusan Natural Recreation Forest“. We did it online two weeks before our trip and we paid 50,000 won. Whenever we go on an overnight trip, we prefer to stay at a recreation forest, pension house or a condo since they usually have a kitchen.

Here’s a picture of our cottage at night with my husband firing the charcoal for the barbecue:

and here’s one I took the following morning before we left:

The kitchen greeted us upon entering the cottage. There is a small fridge, a rice cooker and a two-burner gas stove. There are pots and pans and dining utensils, too.

The bedroom does not have a bed. We all slept on the floor which was heated.

The bathroom also looked newish:

We bought some goodies from E-mart the night before, including a kilo of “moksal” (pork shoulder) that we barbecued outside. It was the best I’ve ever had.

In the morning, I woke up at around seven and took a walk to one of the trails. There were a number of trails but I chose the easiest one ;p There is a row of cottages to the trail:

The autumn wind had swept the leaves off the trees…

I went back to our cottage after half an hour. Before leaving, we all decided to take a walk…

Last night, I saw my husband checking the Mansusan website again. Too bad that all cottages are booked for this weekend!